Breaking Necks and Breaking Hearts

Me: Wait, did that ad seriously try to use Tool Academy to promote Watchmen?

Also Me: I’m afraid it did.  You really shouldn’t go and see this movie, Jeff.

Me: Wait a second.  If the Doctor Manhattan condoms didn’t make me swear off the movie -

Also Me: And the Nite-Owl brand coffee.

Me: I don’t mind the Nite-Owl brand coffee. It’s a movie prop, and the design of it doesn’t suck.  And I’ve always liked the scene in the comics that it calls back to.

Also Me: Whatever.  What about all the toys?  Don’t you think Alan Moore is spinning in his grave?

Me: A) Alan Moore isn’t dead.

Also Me: That doesn’t mean he isn’t in a grave right now.

Me: You know, I never thought about it like that.  B) At first, I was kind of telling myself that the toys were enjoyably ironic.  But really, like this Tool Academy spot and the condoms et al, the toys seem in aggregate to be the result of a scattershot attempt to market something that the marketers don’t really get.

Also Me: Zack Snyder keeps saying that he gets Watchmen.

Me: But he never says what he gets about it, does he?  Early on in college, I played that game with Ulysses all the time to make girls think I was insightful.  And it worked, so good on Snyder, maybe.

Also Me: I really don’t think you should see this movie.  You’re going to regret it.

Me: I don’t know….

TO BE CONTINUED

I spent a decent amount of time at the unofficial Zuda booth over the weekend, and can’t stress enough that High Moon and Nite Owls are worthy of your comics-reading attention (though many of you already know that, I’m thinking).  However, I also got to talk with Bob Francis, who just pitched a comic called Flight Captain Hurricane to Zuda, and that’s what I really want to pimp today.

I saw way more of what Bob and his crew are putting together than I strictly should have, and it’s goddamn impressive.  It’s impeccably researched and has some straight-up beautiful artwork (the first full-page panel, for instance).

Hurricane is in Zuda’s hands right now, and I think it’s got the potential to do well on the Zuda platform.   I feel hackneyed or cliched when I say that “so and so creator is really just a nice guy,” but that’s definitely true of Bob.  He has a very infectious level of enthusiasm for what he’s doing.  He believes in the Zuda platform pretty strongly, and I really hope it works for him.

Still decompressing from the New York con.  For those of you who may be wondering I did not, as I told Ragnell I would a few months ago, stand up in the DC Nation panel and ask Dan Didio if he knew how the Internet worked.

He still doesn’t, by the way.  The DC_Nation Twitter didn’t do a damn thing for the entirety of the con - which, well, would have been a great way to announce all of those new Batman titles or the Giffen/?? Doom Patrol book, don’t you think?  Lots of retweets, lots of potential links.  Lots of buzz.  Because I didn’t hit a lot of panels, I heard all of my con news second hand and, even in real life, it would have been much more convenient for the big announcements to be aggregated somewhere.  If we can have EA’s giant photo wall or the Twitter wall at AdTech, this is something we can surely do.  In fact, the next con broadsides that Alert Nerd puts out will probably do something like this.  Not that that’s DC’s fault.  That’s on Reed and all of the big publishers, actually.

I have some hope for DC, though.  They’ve apparently brought social media microceleb Chris Brogan in to consult the Distinguished Competition on how to retool its online presence.  Chris is a good guy and also a comic geek, so I think that this meeting of the minds can bear some powerful fruit.  I don’t expect DC to just start aping Marvel (okay, I kind of do - there’s a track record there), but they’re experiencing a lot of bad weather online right now, and it’s totally within their power to right it. They just need to be willing to.  It’s not going to win their lost market share back immediately, but raising their profile should be at the top of their marketing gameplan right now.  As comics start to really go digital, it’s going to become more and more of a necessity.

If I’m gonna be honest, I’m a total net-hermit.  I have a core of real-life friends and an ever-expanding group of online acquaintances that I talk to.  One of the neat things about cons is getting to meet the latter group face to face, and those kind of meet ups are what really makes me excited about the comic con circuit every year.

Because meeting other fans and creators in person and just talking to them about the art form is good for creativity.  Going back and looking at the early talk between Matt and I on what would eventually become the currently artist-less book that we want to self-publish (or, at the urging of a few Zuda creators, possibly submit to Zuda), we play off of each other incredibly well, and even get into that kind of “I’m finishing your sentences” vibe, but I get the feeling that we’d be kicking even more ass if we could occasionally lock ourselves in a house with some pizzas and a case of beer for a day or two and just brainstorm and write and talk.  Hitting NYCC this year was like that, and I walked away from it with Ideas that I can’t wait to get on paper.  In fact, if my voice recorder’s batteries weren’t dead, I’d have been dictating my whole drive home.

I love it when this happens, and kind of wonder why I’m not also working on something with some of my local gang, like Rich, Cory or Perry.  Something else for me to think about in ‘09.

On the artist front, nothing promising happened at the con, but I got a really awesome pep talk from Dan McDaid (of Jersey Gods fame) that put the energy back in me.

Sorry for the rambly-ness, by the way.  I want to get back into frequent posts, maybe even one a day.  So yeah.

Back from the con.  Exhausted.  So many awesome things and people, I’ll be talking about them all week, I’m sure.  I think the food at Basilica deserves a post all by itself (nom nom nom).

Fun fact: Sarah called me “girly” because I chose matching accessories over comfort.  That doesn’t make me girly.  Nor does the fact that we were talking about Gossip Girl when that happened.

This weekend, I’ll be in New York City at Comic Con, Twittering like crazy.  I’ll be hanging out with my fellow Alert Nerd Sarah and 3/4s of the Fantastic Fangirls rhombus - Caroline,  Jennifer and Anika  (Honestly, I feel like Bosley). I’ll also be trolling around the BOOM! Studios, Zuda, and Marvel booths rubbing elbows with the rich and powerful.

If you see me schlepping around, say hey.

Keanu Reeves and Joseph Lawrence in a buddy action comedy.

Reeves is the hard-boiled mentor, Lawrence the brash young upstart.

Plot? Doesn’t matter.

Title: Whoa.

Think about it for five minutes.

Now voice your assent in the comments.

I have this niece.  I may have mentioned her before.

At around a year old, she started giving people hi-fives.  As a doting uncle, I thought that this was, in fact, awesome, but I wanted to expand her education (read: teach her a new trick).  So I tried to get her to emulate the notorious Obama fist bump with me.

No dice.

However, last Wednesday, when Amazing Spider-Man #583 was released, Alana toddled up to me and, instead of waving or blowing a kiss or hi-fiving me, she giggled and extended her fist toward me.  I punched it, and she thought it was the most awesome thing.  So did I.

Now, I understand why Erik Larsen is so angry with me.  He did, after all, invent fist bumps.  And nieces.  Both in the pages of Savage Dragon.  I’ve infringed on his intellectual property, and that’s not right.  So, Mr. Larsen, I’ve prepared the following statement: “My bad. It won’t happen again.”

Now let’s stop all the grousing and move on.

So, some of you have been lamenting the change of heart that I’ve had following both my damning review of Twilight and my ill-fated attempt to see the Spirit.  A kind, happy Jeff is not a Jeff that some of you want to read, it would seem.

Well, you guys are in fucking luck.

Today, I am a burning obelisk of pure hate thanks to dealing with Microsoft Customer Service.

Last night, I got home and wanted to play some Guitar Hero.  I fired up my Xbox 360 and got the infamous Red Ring of Death that indicates hardware failure.  This happened to me not long after launch and my experience with Customer Service that time was exemplary.  This time?

I went online to arrange a repair on my own, and that’s where the problem began.  I was asked to register my console, and was informed that the serial number of the console was already registered.  I didn’t buy the console used, either; I got it directly from goddamn Microsoft.  Because I can’t register the console, I can’t do anything online, so I have to call.

When I call, I am confronted with an impenetrable wall of automated responses suggesting that I use the Internet to do what I need to do.  It takes way too long to finally talk to a human being who is obviously outsourced and obviously unwilling to deviate from his script, and I have to explain my problem to him at least three times.  He then asks me to walk through each of the suggested fixes that the online troubleshooting guide and the automated phone system have both suggested to me.  He does not address the console registration issue and he won’t tell me how much the repair will cost, just that I need to print a label online and send the console in.  I’m given a service number and told to have a great day.  Which, you know, seems very likely because one of the few things I can do that will occupy my time without requiring me to think is broken and I just spent a half hour on the phone with someone that I want to strangle.

Once I get a confirmation email, I try to print my shipping label, but SURPRISE - the website that I’m directed to doesn’t recognize my service number and/or zip code.  So I now have a broken Xbox 360 which will be repaired 3 weeks after I ship it to them with the shipping label that I can’t print. So yeah, that rocks.

As it stands, I’m going to have to get back on the phone with them, which I’m as excited about as setting myself on fire, wearing footie pajamas to work or reconciling with my ex.  I sometimes feel like the universe consigns me to the most difficult route to any positive resolution. Bullshit like this is why.

As excruciatingly hard as it can be to craft the perfect mixtape for a girl that you desperately want to sleep with, crafting a mixtape for a girl that you don’t want to sleep with is even harder.  It certainly seems at the outset to be easier - just pick a bunch of songs you like and then put them on a tape - but one thing that my life (and Star Wars) has taught me is that nothing will ever be as easy as it appears to be.

If you’re making a mixtape for a girl that you like, song selection is important.  The mixtape is a block of wood and the playlist is a lathe that you’re using to turn out the elegant ups, downs and flourishes of the emotional journey that you’re sending l’objet d’amour on (or, at least, like, hoping to send them on).

Using a lathe isn’t easy.  There’s a reason you have to sign that waiver on the first day of wood shop.

The problem in making a mixtape for a girl friend that you don’t experience painful, unrequited pangs for, is that every song placement, every lyric, every hand clap needs to be analyzed endlessly to ensure that The Wrong Message (TM) isn’t being sent.  That the tone is, “This is some cool music that I like,” and not “I’m giving this to you under the guise of being some cool music that I like, but there’s a secret, Dan-Brown-esque code embedded within this tape that will show you the true and unerring map of my heart.”  The potential for misinterpretation is huge and anxiety-making.

Maybe I should close with a song that is unromantic.  Antiromantic.  Maybe the whole thing should be antiromantic.  “Here’s a tape I made about how little I like you.”  It would probably have lots of Misfits on it, and some old school Metallica.  Some Gregorian Chant.  Some Christian rock about celibacy and how badass it is.  Bits of the Star Trek score.

Maybe I’m overthinking this.